


winter is coming (here me roar)

by salazarastark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Female Jon Snow, Happy Cersei, Loving Marriage, Minor Catelyn Stark/Robert Baratheon, R Plus L Equals J
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 21:11:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20180794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salazarastark/pseuds/salazarastark
Summary: Cersei marries Ned Stark and finds happiness in the cold North.





	winter is coming (here me roar)

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the WIP Big Bang! I am so glad I had this bang to push me to finish this fic. I still have more I want to write in this world, but I'm glad that I have this out in the world now. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> [red_b_rackham](https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_b_rackham/pseuds/red_b_rackham) did some fabulous art for this fic with my fancast for Ned and Cersei, Ben Barnes and Jodie Comer. Please enjoy and love [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169088).

It’s snowing when Cersei arrives at Winterfell and she hates it already. The yard is nearly empty when she arrives, with the exception of servants to take her and her family’s things to their rooms and Lord Eddard Stark. He stands proud in the yard, the snow falling lightly in his brown hair and his stubble of a beard. His dark gray eyes watch her, his house’s Valyrian greatsword is strapped across his back, and he looks every inch a King of Winter, like in the old tales her nursemaids use to tell her.

He’s not though, because if he was, Cersei wouldn’t be thinking of Jaime, with the sunlight making his hair look even more like gold and his laughing green eyes, with his clean-shaven face and his golden sword. If he was, he would be making Cersei a queen and yet he’s not.

She still smiles when he greets her, her father, and her uncle Gerion (who had thought this wedding would be fun to attend and Cersei hates him for saying that, for how can anything in the North be  _ fun _ ), smiles because he is to be her husband and the one person she needs to have on her side the most here, in this barren wasteland that Eddard Stark calls home and Cersei is determined she never will.

He quickly leads them into the great hall of Winterfell where they can warm up until their rooms are ready, apologizing briefly and curtly for the snow, but repeating his house words at the same time.

Some might say that they’ll soon be Cersei’s house words, but Cersei would kill anyone who did.

She shivers despite the promise she made to herself to not show any sort of weakness to her betrothed, and he notices. He hands his sword to a young boy standing next to him, who nearly stumbles when it’s given, and Cersei almost misses the flicker of jealousy in her father’s eyes as he watches the interaction. Almost, but not quite.

Eddard Stark carefully drapes his fur coat around her, and without even thinking Cersei huddles underneath its warmth. She tells herself that it’s only because her father is standing next to her, sharp eyes keeping note of everything she does, that she doesn’t throw it back in Eddard Stark’s face. She ignores the kindness in his eyes and ignores the sudden feeling of gratitude she has for him.

The hall is big and noisy and Cersei knows that she should be entertaining Eddard Stark, making him fall madly in love with everything about her, but she does not have it in her. Let him think of her as some ice maiden, cold and aloof. This was the north after all. Eddard Stark was surely used to women like that.

Part of her knows that she looks pathetic, that she looks like a lost little girl huddled in the corner of the hall under Lord Stark’s coat as she drinks the hot, spiced wine slowly. Part of her knows this and that part of her doesn’t care. Cersei’s tired, tired from the journey it took to get here, tired from the tears she cried during her good-bye to Jaime, tired from the wedding between Robert Baratheon and Catelyn Tully and the fact that King Robert should have been marrying her. 

The King’s brother, Stannis, and the Queen’s uncle, Brynden, are here at Winterfell, honored guests as the royal couple themselves couldn’t make it. They only glanced at her once as she entered the hall and though Cersei couldn’t help the sting she felt over being ignored, she couldn’t help but be relieved over the fact that she won’t be paid any attention to.

She doesn’t want any attention on her right now.

“Are you okay, my lady?” she heard someone say and realized only a minute later that she was being asked the question. Her head jerked up as she turned toward the voice, a boy of about fourteen holding a little girl that looked to be only a year old. For a minute, Cersei was confused as to who they were, until she remembered that Ned Stark had a brother and a daughter. This must be them. They were dressed in Stark colors and the boy had a small direwolf pinned to his shirt.

Her soon-to-be-goodbrother sets down next to her and situates her soon-to-be-stepdaughter on his lap. The little girl is adorable, all big cheeks and bright eyes, and Cersei wonders who her mother is. Ned Stark hasn’t told a soul who she might be, not even when King Robert legitimized her. Cersei briefly wonders if she should be jealous of this unknown woman, but pushes it out of her mind. Ned Stark would not be jealous of the man he doesn’t know, for Cersei will never tell him it’s Jaime who holds her heart.

“I’m Benjen,” he says, and then smiling down at his niece, says, “This is Joanna.”

Joanna. Cersei never truly thought of naming her daughter after her mother, but she feels a brief stab of fury that she can’t name her daughter that now. Ned Stark took that like he took the chance of her being Queen. Him and Catelyn Tully, who has been Queen for five months and pregnant for that same amount of time.

“Hoster Tully was a smart man,” she had overheard her father saying, and Cersei had been shocked to hear him say that. “His eldest daughter is Queen, his youngest is wife to the Hand and Lady of the Vale, and,” her father had said, “if he had a third she would be Eddard Stark’s wife.”

But he didn’t, so that meant Cersei was going to be Eddard Stark’s wife, leagues away from Jaime and her father and the court she loved so much.

“I hope you enjoy Winterfell, Lady Cersei. If you have need of anything, just ask Ned and he will try to give it to you,” Benjen carried on. Cersei nodded unthinkingly. From everything she had heard, Eddard Stark was an honorable man who would do his best to make her comfortable, but Cersei would never be comfortable up here in the cold, dark north without Jaime.

“Ben,” came Eddard’s voice from behind them, and they both turned to look at him. “I hope you are not disturbing Lady Cersei.” Cersei thought his voice sounded humorless, but apparently that was just how Ned Stark sounded when he  _ was  _ being humorous, if the grin on his brother’s face was any indication.

“Would I do that?” Benjen asked Eddard cheekily and for the first time that night Cersei saw some emotion come across Eddard Stark’s face. It was just a grin, and it flashed so quickly that Cersei might have simply imagined it. Still, it was something.

It was nothing that would help her, but at least it was something.

Upon seeing her father, Joanna smiles widely and holds up her arms. The grin returns to Eddard’s face and stays this time.

He takes his daughter from his brother, and Joanna buries her head in her father’s shoulder. Cersei supposed a lesser woman would find her heart melted at the show, but she is not a lesser woman.

She stands before the world tall and strong, the two things it can never take from her.

At that reminder, Cersei stops hunching over her mug and straightens her back. She is a Lannister, a Lannister of Casterly Rock, and no marriage will ever change that.

She turns to look at Eddard Stark and the little girl in his arms. “Benjen was not disturbing me, Lord Eddard. He was simply introducing himself to me.”

Benjen nods eagerly. “See? You always think the worst of me, Ned, and I don’t know why.”

Eddard responds by rolling his eyes. Cersei struggles not to respond the same. There is something about Benjen she likes however, and she wonders why. It hits her a moment later. Something in his smile, in his words, in his nod, whatever it is, she can’t quite put a name to it, reminds her of Jaime.

Her heart begins to hurt, and she turns away, tuning out the rest of Eddard’s teasing and Benjen’s growing frustration.

She might be a lioness, but all Cersei feels is the pain of being declawed.

Cersei spends the rest of the night in a daze. Oh, soon enough, she livens up and begins to smile, charming the servants and the castle inhabitants, making them glad that they will have her as their lady soon. But she shies away from Eddard Stark as much as she can. Perhaps the others don’t notice, but her father and soon-to-be husband do. Her father’s looks are full of warning and anger, Eddard’s full of sadness and resignation.

She doesn’t care. Let them look, let them feel.

The Seven know she cannot.

She will be married in three days’ time, and three days after that, her father will ride back south. He’ll leave her here all alone, with nothing but her wits and her strength to help her survive.

She knows they’ll be enough.

*

Eddard Stark swings the cloak around her and Cersei suppresses the want and the need to flinch.  _ You are a Lannister _ , she thinks to herself,  _ and therefore they will always look for a weakness. _

_ You have to make sure they never find it. _

Cersei had used her mother’s maiden cloak for her wedding, and it was beautiful in her eyes. Made with the finest golden thread there could be on beautiful red silk, with rubies as the eyes of the lion and golden fur as its trim, it was so easy to imagine how splendid a wedding that must have been. Cersei had felt powerful as she put it on in the morning.

But it was not to last. A woman in her party had copied her mother’s cloak. A white cloak with a gray direwolf, with diamonds for eyes and gray fur trim. It was beautiful, Cersei couldn’t lie. She had even imagined giving this to her daughter one day as a maiden cloak. The image had flickered through her mind as she looked in the mirror in the morning. A daughter, one who looked so much like her, smiling as Cersei put the cloak around her shoulders, just like Cersei had imagined as a little girl her mother doing for her one day.

She still couldn’t help but want to rip it off as she and Lord Eddard walked back down the aisle from the weirwood tree to the Great Hall.

It was lively, filled with laughing Northmen who hadn’t been here when she first arrived and would leave again soon enough. She recognized various sigils that her father made her memorize, but the names of their lords and ladies were lost on her. A swirl of them passed by her and her husband, sitting as they were at the center of the long hall. Cersei smiled and thanked them, and made notes about each and every one. She knew there would be many things said about her, but she did not want “a pretty fool” to be one of them.

She danced after the congratulations were given, the first and a few times after with her husband, some with Benjen, a dance with Lord Stannis and a dance with Ser Brynden. She danced once with every Northern lord who asked it of her, a couple with Uncle Gerion (who is becoming better friends with the Northerners as they all get drunker), and once with her father, who spoke only to tell her to do her duty and to make sure she gave Lord Stark many sons.

She nodded her understanding and wished that Jaime was here with her. If Jaime were here, he would find a way to stay here, to be with her. Jaime could father her children, at least some of them, and Eddard Stark would be none the wiser.

But he was not with her and only the Seven knew when she would be with him again. She knew that she couldn’t prevent children forever, and besides, Cersei wanted children as soon as possible.

They would be her only allies here, her only spots of warmth.

*

The bedding comes quicker than she wants it too, but Cersei knew that she couldn’t stop it from happening. She already knows what is coming, she has done it enough times with Jaime, and she does not plan to do anything but lie there like any other woman would do their first time. Lord Stark wasn’t drunk enough that he wouldn’t notice that she didn’t bleed for her first time, but Cersei knew that there were some woman who lost their maidenhead after a fall from a horse. It was easy enough excuse.

She is taken to the bedroom in Lord Stannis’s arms, and she finds his blush amusing enough to distract her a little bit from the hollers of the other drunken lords. She hears the giggle of women behind her, and she knows that Lord Stark is being pulled to the bedroom. She hopes that this bedding won’t take long, though unlike other new brides she does not dread because of pain.

After tonight, Jaime won’t be the only man she has ever been with. She had only planned for two men to know her body. One was now dead and only the gods knew when she would see the second one again.

They are deposited in the bedroom swiftly and after a few gross comments, they are left alone. Cersei turns to look at her new husband. Eddard Stark is handsome in a quiet way and while not as muscular as Jaime or Robert or Rhaegar, he does not seem to have much excess fat if he has any. He is not unattractive, and it’s easy to see how a woman would be willing to fall into bed with him. As her gaze turns downward, there is nothing to complain about in that area either. She feels his gaze upon her as he must feel hers, and they both know one of them must make the first move.

Lord Stark is the one to do so. “My lady,” he says, “I will be gentle, and I will not force you into anything you don’t want to do, but. . . .” He trails off, clearly unsure what to say next, and Cersei cannot fully suppress a smile. Sooner or later, they will have to consummate the marriage, and they might as well do it as soon as they can.

“It’s alright, my lord. I know what needs to be done. I thank you for your kindness in thinking of my comfort,” she says, her voice sweet and kind. She wants her husband on her side, and she wants him happy because she knows that without him, she will not survive in this world. 

She walks up to him and stays right before him, raising her head to look right into his eyes. For a minute, he just looks at her, and then, quicker than she would expect, he puts his hands on her hips and pulls her close to him. She can’t suppress the gasp that bursts from her lips. Her new husband waits for a few seconds, and then lowers his head to cover her lips with his.

He is a surprisingly good kisser. It took her and Jaime many kisses to figure out exactly what they liked from the other, but then again, she and Jaime were each other’s first and only. Lord Stark has a bastard daughter, and the mother of that girl, whoever she may be, was almost certainly not his first.

Before she knows it, one hand is in her hair and the other on the small of her back and both of her arms are carelessly thrown around his neck. She feels her knees getting weak, and she moans into his mouth.

He removes his hands from their current positions, a loss that she feels deeply for some reason, and he uses them . . . to . . . pick . . . her . . . up. . .

Jaime had never done that. Of course, she and Jaime mainly had quick fucks in hidden corners and rooms. He, for some reason, had never picked her up. Just pushed her down or turned her around, and it was almost always good, but this was something else.

Eddard put her down gently on the bed, and broke the kiss just when Cersei felt like she would have to pull back if she didn’t want to die from lack of air. She panted as her husband just moved his mouth down to her throat, then to between her breasts, then to her stomach, and then to her. . . .

_ Ohsevenhells _ , was this how northern women stayed warm in these long winters?

All she did was focus on the fact that his hands were on her hips and his mouth was on  _ that part  _ of her and she was feeling that familiar heat building up in the base of her spine except it was sharper and warmer and the next thing she knew she had a hand fisting in the sheets and an arm thrown over her eyes and she was moaning harder and harder and then she was yelling out a wordless scream and she had  _ never _ felt something like that with Jaime.

She had done that a time or two for Jaime because she heard servant girl’s whispering about it, but she never heard  _ anything _ about a man doing that for a woman. Jaime had never given the indication that he had heard about something like that, and if he had, he certainly never told her about it.

The rippling waves of heat were still rolling over her body as Eddard pulled his mouth away from her, and she whimpers at that. Her cheeks burn at that, at how quickly he made her utterly at his mercy. She hates that. She wants to push him down on the bed, and ride him until he is left as the same mess that she knows she is. Of course, that is not how a maid would go about this.

Eddard looks down at her. “Can I continue, my lady?” he asks, and Cersei nods.

He pushes into her, and Cersei actually does squirm at how sensitive she feels down there. He waits for her to get adjusted to the feeling, for her to tell him to continue, and then he does and it feels  _ glorious _ .

He fucks her slowly and gently. Unlike her previous joy, which came hard and fast, this one comes slower, though it feels just as good. She feels undone and out of control and yet, for some reason, she doesn’t mind it.

That surprises her. Jaime was the only person she thought could pull her apart like that and could get her to enjoy it, but Eddard Stark proved her wrong.

He kisses her right before her peak, and she can taste herself on his mouth. Her vision turns white and she thinks she bites his lip so hard that she draws blood. She can taste the salty tang of it on her lips.

She is vaguely aware of him spilling his seed inside of her, and then pulling out. If he does anything else, she doesn’t realize it. The frantic activity of the past few days hits her all at once and she is pulled into the warm embrace of sleep.

*

Cersei woke up from the best sleep of her life slowly. She is aware of an arm slung across her waist, holding her close to a warm chest. It is not unpleasant. It is actually warm and comforting, and it makes her feel safe in a strange way. She and Jaime had never had the luxury to wake up in each other’s arms, and she wonders if he would have felt different. She doesn’t know. It disturbs her in a way, knowing that she knows something about Eddard Stark that she could never know about Jaime. There’s something about that makes her feel different, more than even the consummation of the marriage.

She was prepared for that. These more mundane things . . . ? That’s harder. That’s something that she didn’t even have with Jaime.

She is up before her new husband, and what a strange thing to think. She has a husband. She is married. She turns to look at him, his arms still around her, and finds herself caught off guard. He looks young. She knew he was only a few years older than her, twenty to her seven-and-ten. He bears himself as a man older, but in his sleep his burdens are shed.

His brown hair is shoulder length and falls around his face. He has a long face, but a handsome one. He does not seem to smile much, and she thinks that if he did, he would be considered much better looking. There is quietness to him, even in an unguarded moment like this, which seems to soften every moment around him, make it more intimate.

She finds herself tracing his cheekbones with the pad of her thumb. She stops only for a brief moment when he stirs, but then he settles back into sleep and she resumes her actions. There is something comforting about him.

She is not aware of time passing. All she is aware of their breathing and her fingers on his face and his arm still around her. She does not how long she does it, but she knows it was not for a short period of time.

He sleeps through it all, and in fact, she thinks his breathing gets deeper and his face relaxes even more. They are only interrupted by a knock on the door.

Cersei feels a surge of irritability at whoever it is. Then she aims that surge towards herself. What does it matter that she has been interrupted. Ned Stark might be her husband, but he is not Jaime.

She needs to remember that fact.

*

Life is slow, after that first night. He comes to her every night, touches her in ways that make her come undone, but they hardly interact beyond what’s polite during the day. She can tell he hates it.

She doesn’t care.

She might be his wife, but she’ll never be his woman. She keeps Jaime close to her heart, remembers her twin’s golden smile, the way that sunlight could fall on him and make him shine like a god. Eddard Stark does not stir the same feeling inside of her, and for that she is grateful.

But he does stir something. Slowly, Cersei finds herself thinking of him in an almost kind manner. Perhaps it’s not the worst thing in the world. He  _ is _ her husband after all.

Her stepdaughter is another matter.

Joanna is a threat to her, but the key to gaining the North’s heart. Cersei knows what her father would suggest. Kill the girl so that way Ned Stark will want to make her replacement in Cersei’s womb.

Joanna is a sweet child, as loath as Cersei is to admit it. She lights up whenever she sees her father walk into a room and always stretches out her plump arms for him. In return, her husband will give her the truest smile that Cersei will ever find on his face and lift her up, no matter what her wetnurse squawks about. Cersei finds it equally annoying and charming, frustrating in how  _ easy _ Ned seems to find loving his daughter.

She wonders what secret he has learned that most men never figure out.

She wonders if her father could have ever loved her, but she forces that thought away. It doesn’t matter how great she could have been and how proud she could have made Tywin Lannister if she had a cock between her legs, what matters now is the fact that she must bear Ned Stark a living son who will become his pride and joy, a shining lion in this cold and pallid North.

And she tries.

And tries.

Letters arriving from her father, disappointment clear in every stroke about what a disappointment she is to the Lannister name for not producing a Stark heir. She is trying, the old gods and the new know how hard she tries. She visits the Sept and the Godswoods, gets on her knees and  _ prays _ . There is talk about her defectiveness, that two years go by with nothing stirring in her belly. If she had a miscarriage or stillbirth, it would show that it was possible for her to bear a child. But instead she has nothing, and that means that Eddard has nothing.

Except that precious little Joanna.

Until a week passes by where she cannot keep her breakfast down nor a smile off her face.

*

Her stomach grows big and round over the next few months. Eddard’s eyes light up with quiet delight whenever he sees it. Joanna seems happy about the new sibling, which bodes well. If it’s a boy, she wants it so Joanna will never  _ think _ of disobeying her brother. If it’s a girl, she wants it so Joanna will hold her sister in high-esteem on the off-chance Cersei cannot give Eddard any sons and she can’t remove Joanna from the line of succession. Either way, a good relationship will be the best thing for this child.

Her husband finds quiet moments to talk to her. He smiles at her and asks how she’s doing every night, and she always nods and says that she is fine. Her feet hurt and her back cramps and she is ravenous for the most unusual things, but she is hopefully growing the heir to the North inside her and for that, she is grateful. She feels her child inside her, kicking with strong legs and she knows that they’re a fighter much like she is, a Lannister just as much as a Stark.

She wonders if they will look like her, or like her husband and Joanna.

She gets her answer in a stormy night, gripping the frame of her bed tightly as she pushes out her child, praying fervently that she’ll survive this, that she won’t perish like her mother did. Or if she does, she won’t give Eddard a twisted dwarf as an heir to go along with his bastard daughter.

It is the early hours of the morning when she pushes for the last time and she’s greeted with a strong wail and hears the words, “You have a daughter, my lady.”

*

Sansa.

They name her Sansa.

She has the red hair of her great-great-grandmother Rohanne Webber and the blue eyes of Rickard Stark. She’s beautiful and lovely and while Cersei feels a bitter well of disappointment that she could not give Eddard a son, such a strong and healthy daughter is a promise that Cersei is determined to keep.

Eddard dotes upon her just like he does Joanna. Cersei wishes it were more, that he would look at her daughter and see her as superior, but the thought sheds away into a strange guilt when she sees Joanna watching her little sister with wide eyes and a bright smile.

Her husband is never going to love her children more than Joanna.

But as she watches him with both Joanna and Sansa, she realizes that he is never going to love them less.

And that is all she can ask for.

*

The Iron Isles revolt. Her husband has to go to war.

She watches him leave with his retinue. He looks handsome and proud. Her daughter’s features lean towards the Lannister’s without a doubt, but she sees the Stark in Sansa clear as day.

Sansa is in her arms and Joanna is clutching her skirt as they watch their father leave as well, accepting his kisses and hugs like they might be the last they ever get from him and she prays they are wrong, that it is typical Stark solemnity that they are expressing and they have not seen the future like she has heard that Northerners sometimes can.

Eddard had prepared her well for running Winterfell, making sure she could do it sooner after they were married in case of anything happening to him. He never thought of her lesser, and Cersei is determined to make him proud as she takes charge of the North and Winterfell.

She remembers how her mother controlled Casterly Rock before her death, and aims to make her proud as well.

It is almost a year by the time Eddard comes back.

He has changed both very little and tremendous amounts at the same time, and by the look of surprise that she sees in his eyes, she feels that the same can be said about her. He seems taller and wiser. His hair and beard have both grown out more, framing his face in a way that suits him greatly and she knows that she does not want him to cut it or shave it now that he is back.

Next to him is a terrified looking child, Theon Greyjoy. Once the spare to the spare and now the heir, Cersei is expected to make sure this child is fed and clothed and treated in away that befits his status while at the same time making sure he never forgets what happened that forced him to live in Winterfell, miles away from the sea he calls a home.

Eddard delights in holding his daughters that come running and screaming towards him. Cersei is glad to see it, she was worried that he had been gone so long that they forgot his face. She is happy to be proven wrong. She forces herself to keep a steady pace towards him, pretend like she doesn’t want to hold him tightly in front of everyone else when she  _ knows _ it is not the proper way to do things.

Her father would have a fit if he saw how much emotion Cersei was already displaying, the wide smile on her face clear that she loves her husband.

She loves her husband.

And he loves her as he whispers that night as he enters her, filling her up in that perfect way that she has missed.

*

It doesn’t take long before Cersei demands on having the next child. She will not wait years, not when it took so long to make Sansa, as perfect as she is.

As soon as Maester Luwin tells her that it won’t do her or her fertility harm to invite her husband back into her bed, she does. Eddard visits her almost every night, except when she has her moon blood, a disappointing event every month that leaves her short with the maids that scurry about this castle like indolent mice whenever they see her sheets stained with blood for the month.

She pushes back her anger and fury, all the things that she wants to scream at them because she knows it will get back to Eddard and he will be disappointed in her, asking her if she really must be so harsh and cruel with the maids even if they deserve it.

So she screams and cries and gnashes her teeth into her pillow, and then she sits up and prepares for the next month, where hopefully there will be no blood on her sheets.

Unfortunately, it does take another two years before Cersei feels that familiar sickness and her midsection becomes stubborn and refuses to shed weight. She wants to dance with joy, when she realizes it, when Maester Luwin confirms it.

Eddard picks her up and spins her laughing. The girls delight when told of the new sister. She accepts the letter from King Robert and Queen Catelyn with grace in her opinion, and is shocked to find only the smallest amount of jealousy in her soul. She’s heard rumors of King Robert and his wenching and drinking and growing belly. Eddard still seems to think good things about his oldest friend, but Cersei has heard different.

When Cersei dreams a world in which she is queen, it is always with Eddard by her side as king.

*

Myrcella.

That is the name of this daughter.

It was an easier birth. It didn’t last nearly as long and Cersei did not feel as much strain on her body as she had before with Sansa. The second girl is disappointing, but she feels that Maester Luwin mistook her wail for lingering pains, and not the image on Eddard’s face when he sees that he still does not have a son.

But Eddard just smiles and says that the next child might be a boy, and then remarks that he is grateful to have three living children.

Cersei is sure that her father would be fine if his three children had died early deaths if he could have the perfect son.

Myrcella takes after the Lannister’s far more than Sansa. Her hair is blonde and her eyes are green and Cersei already feels that this little one will be her spitting image as much as Joanna is Ned’s.

Though Joanna, while only six, is growing into a beauty. There is something about her features that is oddly familiar to Cersei, though she can’t begin to place it. It feels like it is constantly on the tip of her tongue, but falling away whenever she opens her mouth.

She has a strange dream one night of Joanna with purple eyes, and wakes up with a beating heart and no idea what it possibly means.

She thinks about the rumors of the girl’s mother. Ashara Dayne is the name she hears the most, but she knew Ashara in pacing, hated the girl and her loyalty to Elia Martell, but it doesn’t make sense. There are some features that are not Stark in the girl's face, but they certainly aren't Dayne. Perhaps it is like Sansa, traits pulled from generations back, but for some reason, Cersei doubts it.

But the identity of the women who gave Edward Stark his first daughter is one it seems he would rather die than reveal. She has asked and he refuses to answer and that burns at her, but she rests easy with the knowledge that whoever it is, she was unable to become his wife and it is Cersei who shares his bed and bears his children.

It is a small condolence, but it is one that she clings too.

*

She is pregnant again. Myrcella is less than a year old and she is grateful that the cycle has been broken. She does not have to wait years before the next child.

But this pregnancy is hard for her in a way that Sansa's and Myrcella's weren't. Her dreams are filled with the strangest things. Joanna appears with the strange purple eyes. Sansa stands next to a direwolf bigger than her with a crown of bronze on her head. Myrcella sits in front of the weirwood tree and prays. Two boys stand in the shadows, and she is unable to make them out in the darkness, but she can feel how much she loves them, how much she  _ needs _ to protect them.

She always forgets them when she wakes up even as she remembers the girls.

But this pregnancy ends in a screaming labor and a brief moment that she becomes certain that she is going to die. Sansa's birth was nothing, it is this child that makes her feel that she must choose between them or herself.

But it ends with a boy, a strong healthy boy who looks Stark in every possible way and whose name was never a question.

He is Brandon, though quickly called Bran by his sisters.

The North celebrates. Eddard seems no more happy at a son than a daughter, but Cersei can see the relief in his eyes and in the stoop of his shoulders. There is an heir for the North.

Her father sends her a note of congratulations, one that hadn’t been sent when either Sansa or Myrcella was born and that causes something to  _ burn _ inside Cersei. How dare they not see how good and perfect her daughters are? Eddard can appreciate them as his children just as much as he appreciates Bran, why is it so hard for her father to do the same?

Why could her father not appreciate her just as much as an heir as he did Jaime?

As much as her unconceived second son.

Because that comes along with the letter. A demand for her to have more sons that he can supplant Tyrion with.

She has birthed the Stark heir. Now she needs to repeat it with the Lannister heir.

All she is worth in her father’s eyes is the cunt that will give strong boys, heirs for the two most powerful families in Westeros and if that is the case, fine. She will do it.

She will bring at least two strong and healthy boys into this world and she will raise them to love and adore her, to see her as the person to come to when they need advice, when they need to be told what to do because they are  _ lost _ without their mother.

She will make the person they respect most in the world Cersei Lannister and she will burn in the seven hells before it’s  _ Tywin _ .

Her father gets his wish however. Less than a year after Bran’s birth, she realizes there is a new cycle when she is pregnant again.

*

Tommen is her largest child. He is chunky and big, though Bran’s birth was still far harder despite his smaller size. He has big golden curls and pudgy cheeks and a bright smile on his face since the day he’s born. He wraps his hand around whoever puts their finger nearby and shake it laughing, delighting at touching another person, at being close to them.

She loves that sweet innocence inside him, and she prays that it will never go away. Her father sends a letter asking for Tommen to be sent to Casterly Rock as soon as he is weaned, Cersei send back a response saying that he will go down to Casterly Rock when he is thirteen and not a moment before baring her father’s health necessitating that Tommen learns what it means to be a Lannister and a ruler of Casterly Rock sooner than planned.

She does not fear trickery. Her father is so proud, that he will never say that unless it’s truth.

Eddard agrees with her. He does not like her father, and he never has. He has never forgiven him for what he did to Elia Martell and her children, just like he has never forgiven her brother for killing Aerys when he was a sworn brother of the Kingsguard.

(They do not talk about Jaime. He is the one thing they can never agree upon. Cersei misses him like a brother now, not a lover, and she does not know when that change happened. She merely takes the pang in heart in stride as she gazes at her husband, and tries not to think about what she would do if she ever saw Jaime again.)

But her father. . . . When Cersei was a girl, she was cruel. She knows that. There are some things she cannot understand how she was truly in the wrong and there are some things she pushes deep inside herself so that she doesn’t have to think about them. But she cannot understand how her father could let Elia Martell and her children die. She looks at her children and her throat tightens as she thinks about their deaths, ready to rip out the throat of anyone who dares try to harm them.

But as Cersei holds her second son and watches Eddard play with the others in the low light of the father as a summer snow falls outside, she banishes the thought of Tywin Lannister from her man. He does not deserve her attention now.

Not when she has her family.

Not when she has her husband.

*

He asks her to call him Ned. They have been married for almost seven years when he asks her this question, laying in bed as he holds her in his strong arms, his beard tickling the back of her neck as she laughs as he tells what Wyman Manderly said to Roose Bolton. It is peaceful and she is happy and he whispers into her neck before he presses a small kiss and says, “I’d like you to call me Ned.”

“Of course,” she responds as his hands dip lower. “Of course, Ned.”

And with that, Cersei realizes that she is truly Ned Stark’s wife. Four children and seven years later, it is in this moment that the last piece of her wedded life feels settled in place.

*

It is a year after that small, momentous moment that her father writes her to tell her that he is coming to Winterfell. He is bringing her brother, not trusting him to be alone at Casterly Rock for whatever reason, and Cersei finds herself stressed more than she has felt these last eight years. She grits her teeth and does her best not to snap at the children as they prepare Winterfell for his arrival, and Ned looks somber as the day gets closer for his arrival.

When it arrives, Cersei is left with a thumping heart as she waits to receive her father in the courtyard. Eddard is next to her, Bran in his arms. She has Tommen in hers, while Joanna stands on her other side and Sansa and Myrcella lean on each other. They are all dressed in the white and gray of the Starks, even Cersei.

She will never forget that she is a Lannister, but she wants her father to know that by now, she has also become a Stark.

His face tics when he dismounts his horse and he sees the pointed message. Cersei stands up straight and lets the smirk that so desperately wants to appear on her face come.

He has no control over her here.

He has no control over her at all.

Tyrion looks at Winterfell with wide eyes, and for the first time that Cersei can remember, seeing her little brother does not cause a spark of rage to flame up in her heart.

She still doesn’t like him. She doesn’t think she ever can, not when he took her mother from her. But she feels a strange guilt over the things she said and did when he was an infant and while she refuses to apologize for stupid things that young girls do, she does resolve to herself to treat him better now. Besides, he has surely forgotten everything from back then, and what good would it do now to bring it all back up?

Her father says hardly anything to her throughout the feast meant to celebrate their arrival, making uneasy conversation with Ned when he does speak at all. He glances at her children, but does not seem impressed, a feeling that makes Cersei want to slap him as hard as she can for not seeing how wonderful they really are. Even Joanna, a child that Cersei does not love as much as her own children and never will, but one who has a soft spot in her heart nonetheless.

But what Tywin Lannister does is seek her after the feast, when Ned is talking to some of his bannermen that are leaving tonight and the children have all been put to bed. Cersei expected it to happen, but she did not look forward to it.

Still, she is a lion and she will not turn tail and run.

“You’ve grown meek,” he snarls as she brushes her golden hair, back straight and mouth pursed because she is no longer a child and she is too old for a scolding.

“I’ve become a mother and a wife. Everything you wanted me to be,” is her only response, and she’s proud of her even tone.

“I did not want you to be some wolf’s  _ bitch _ .”

She slams the brush down on the dresser. “And I’m  _ not _ . I am his wife. The mother of his children. The woman who he loves most in the world and the only bed he shares.”

Her father scoffs. “Your children will be more Stark than Lannister, and that is not what I planned for, Cersei. And you raise that bastard like you gave birth to her, like she isn’t a threat to your daughters.”

“Because she isn’t.  _ Joanna _ ,” she stretches the name, enjoys the flinch, “is a sweet girl that will look at me kindly as the woman who raised her when she marries. And she’s the eldest daughter, Father, as much as I hate it, it is likely that she will marry Prince Robb one day. I know that I will be taken care of. Do you?”

Her father narrows his green eyes and hatefully scoffs before leaving her room. Only when Cersei is sure that he is gone does she allow herself to shake, giddy and sick at her own bravery. She lays in bed, and only falls asleep when Ned comes in hours later and wraps himself around her.

Her father is still here. Her problems still exist.

But with Ned, she can get through them all.


End file.
